Biography

“ My works were exhibited on January 31st 2006 at the Museum of Israeli Art at Ramat Gan. I displayed a series of Indian Bollywood movie actors portraying them in larger than life format, showing icons and images that “sell” the perfect illusion in full colour. The actors are well dressed and adorned, another expression of Indian reality, and the colours are very strong reflecting an impoverished and harsh reality. My technique is one that blends painting and printmaking thus maximizing precision. The other series were different brands and romantic past memories if India. The Mercedes symbol or Macdonald’s sign or Pizza Hut, Nike, all examples of colonialism enveloping the world and destroying the old symbols….questions arise, such as what is greater-an Indian Chai or Starbucks coffee? The series of brands with different beasts such as tiger, cheetah, puma or jaguar… there is a clear evaluation of feminism in all of them. "

Rajul

Rajul Mehta is a cosmopolitan. With her paintings, which are shown in Zurich at the moment, she will induce to reflect upon the consequences of the globalisation – but not only.

Those expressions: Self-confident and proud are the looks from the paintings of the women of the Indian artist Rajul Mehta, who already has been living over 15 years in Israel with her family. Already so many years, that one should describe her rather an Israeli artist, who comes from India. However, Rajul Mehta reluctantly does not scale herself down, neither betwixt nor between:, Home is, where my heart is”, or else wise said: ,I feel also very comfortable in Switzerland”, she reckons and emanates the same self-confidence, which allude to the women’s eyes.

The works of Rajul Mehta can be seen at the still young gallery Bertoni at Schaffhauserstrasse. Angela and Rita Bertoni, the two gallery owners, knocked on their cosmopolitan protege via the Internet. Her works fit well into the concept of the clear showing room, in which ,arte & ambiente” should find the right location for art and life-style accessories.

Whereas the two Bertoni-sisters would like to place the focus more on art in the future, even if it is placed mostly in liveable rooms in every day’s life, explain the two their primary idea. To enhance the discussion on art, a circle of referees is projected, which will illumine the coherence between art and photography.

“ Rajul Mehta paints moments of life just like in the movies. The artist here presents her work for the first time on the international art scene with a series inspired from the colorful dramas of the indian film industry. These paintings deal with fate of mythic and tragic characters, relationships of love, betrayal, devotion and fidelity and the epic and impossible battles of the generation gap.

The word ‘Bollywood’ itself is a colorful concept, full of fantasy and the wonderful dream world of the indian film industry, based on the old, traditional Hollywood style. Color, drama, songs and dances, love and endless struggles are all included in this fascinating and gripping genre, which has made inroads into western culture in the last decade. In India alone, the fans, number more than 40 million people! Bollywood has come to symbolize and demonstrate the life style of modern and advanced indian society. It confronts the past with the future, truth with falsehood, and innocence with forbidden daring. All these are the subjects of Rajul Mehta paintings. The exhibition of the Bollywood Series, entitled ‘Monsoon Wedding’ displays two series of paintings. The first shows us the mythical characters of the Bollywood industry in painted collages of images from the films.

The paintings look like a development of cinema posters. The second series depicts an animated record of scenes from celebrated Bollywood films. The photographic and film media have had an immeasurable impact on the modern consciousness. In his frequently quoted essay ”Creating Art in the Age of Technical Reproduction”, Walter Benjamin explained how the new technologies of mass reproduction released art from being a ritual and made it available everywhere. With the meteoric enhancement of its exhibition potential, art has become a product with totally new roles to play. We may remember that the Dada movement, at the time of the First World War in Europe, used shadows and projected light. In the 1960 and after, Andy Warhol and Pop massively registered the influence of the cinema. Rajul Mehta, as an independant artist with a mind of her own, acknowledges these antecedants and assumes the challenge that they present to individual expression. In her work, the properties of painting, hand and matter, are brought back into play in a way that allows us a glimpse into the mysteries of her world and the very original sources of her creativity. ” 

Nina Scheu, Tags-Anzeiger, 20 June 2007

The screen-prints of Rajul Mehta merely remind of the star portraits of her great ideal Andy Warhol – although they emerge alike – technically considered.

Rajul Mehta is working with photo exhibitions: (“I love the precision as fundament for my ideas”) and screen-printing, but she handles the canvas thereafter with thick oil paint and self made pigments until the original image looses its outlines and receives a new statement.

Also if those Indian women, lions and leopards appear at first sight slightly pleasing, the ideas behind it are not. It is a paradox though; that her paintings are mainly seen in Banks and official buildings, where one does not want to offend with the art. But at the second glimpse the socio-political aspect makes itself accessible just as much: her women collection ought to animate the viewer to reflect upon their position in today’s society. “Just in reference to the self-conception of Indian women, the West often makes wrong concedes”, underlines the artist. “The globalisation has long ago reached all social systems”.

The world has changed rapidly and it is the abandonment of art to reflect and to take a clear stand on these alterations. Thereby, the distant view helps her, which she gained from the long lasting absence from India and the view on those years towards her new homeland and the Western moral concept. Being uprooted, Rajul Mehta has made this issue to a major subject in her art. The paintings reflect how close the world ranks together through globalisation.